Oprah is a woman who loves her dogs. She’s had 21 pups in her adult life — including 11 at one time. “Nothing makes me happier than being with my dogs,” she says. In the above video from “Oprah’s Lifeclass,” we look back at the incredible bond she’s experienced with her animals.

“Over the years I have felt the truest, purest love — the love of God, really, I imagine that’s what God’s love feels like — is the love that comes from your dog,” Oprah says.

Though she loved them all, “Oprah Show” fans will remember one special cocker spaniel who rarely left Oprah’s side. “One of my greatest teachers is my dog, Sophie,” Oprah says. “Sophie lived for 13 years and came to work with me every day. Was there for every show, was backstage at the Oscars, at the Emmys, was waiting in the car if I went to the gynecologist.”

Solomon, Oprah’s other cocker spaniel, also went with her everywhere — but Sophie would cling even closer, as the pooch would get separation anxiety whenever Oprah left the room.

Sadly, Sophie died on March 10, 2008. “It wasn’t until she passed away that I really understood the depth of my love for her,” Oprah says. “Because I learned from a show we did many years ago with Gary Zukav that there are big souls and little souls. And Sophie was a little soul – just a little soul, but had a great impact on my life. And when I lost her is when I realized that nobody on earth had ever loved me like that little dog.”

college education, college financing, The Daily Beast, The War Room: INSANE! My daughter and I were talking about the price of Davidson, when I went, 1978, and today. The numbers in this article are fairly accurate.

Since 1978 the price of college has increased in absolute dollars by 1120 percent, more than any other good or service in the U.S. economy. (For example, the cost of food has increased by just 244 percent and healthcare by 601 percent in the same period). A widely cited study by Richard Arum, Academically Adrift, concludes that 36 percent of college students show no significant gains in learning over the course of their four years in college. Indeed, 68 percent of students at public colleges and universities fail to graduate in four years. And in 2012, over 50 percent of graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

She responded by writing, “Not to be creepy. But kinda think we could have same donor.”

The idea was so far-fetched that neither gave it much thought, they said. But when the girls arrived at Tulane in the fall, they met and jokingly referred to each other as “sister.”

They were placed in the same dormitory, one floor apart, and both landed parts in the same theater production, “The Vagina Monologues.” Throughout the first semester, they said hello in the stairwell but were more acquaintances than friends.

Then, over Thanksgiving break, both freshmen were part of a larger group of Tulane students that didn’t go home. They ended up at the Gonzales outlet mall, as part of a Black Friday shopping trip. Each spent the day shopping with their own friends, then discovered on the bus ride home that they’d bought the same sweater in different colors.

The similarities continued to pile up.

They both sleeptalk and sleepwalk — so much so that their parents used to put an extra lock on the door at night, for fear they’d walk outside. And back in the early 1990s, their parents had gone to the same place, California Cryobank, and selected a Colombian sperm donor with an interest in theater out of hundreds of potential candidates for insemination.

character counts, deviations from gender norms, double standards, shame on you: It’s not the little white lie, it’s that she left her husband after he paid off her loans. And yes there are double standards, but I try to hold both sexes to the same standards. Shame on you, Wendy Davis.

Now the question is whether Slater’s sexist narrative will hurt Wendy Davis’ chances. It’s hard to imagine that there are many Texans who were considering voting for a pro-choice Democrat but would be too scandalized by her deviations from gender norms to vote for her now. The biggest obstacle that Davis faces—that she’s a Democrat in a solidly red state—hasn’t changed a bit. And the fact that the attacks on her are getting so shrill suggests that perhaps Republicans are really beginning to fear she has a chance.

I don’t know…regardless of party affiliation …people don’t like it when one is loose with the truth. She has been loose with the truth. Her one big thing is abortion.

“Loose with the truth”? She was separated at 19 and divorced at 21, rather than divorced at 19. And she “only” lived in a trailer for a few months. And she got help paying for law school. That’s the best they got. I don’t think she will win, but she just raised $12 million and the TX Repubs are scared s**tless.

The Republicans just might tear each other appart in the primaries, leaving whichever candidate wins vunerable. The attacks on one area congressman have already started, without any mention of who is running against him.

This may be setting her up for a US House run in 2016. The districts have been heavily gerrymandered, but there still are some Democratic districts.

She is undoubtedly intelligent, attractive and came from modest means. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why have to “exaggerate” the true circumstances of her life just to get some easy to remember narrative (divorced teen mom who pulled HERself up to make it through Ha rvard Law all alone). After decades of being told ‘it takes a village’

…why can’t the true narrative of her life be enough? We should celebrate that she was able to surpass 2 of the 3 biggest causes for women to be in poverty (teen mom, no degree) to become an attorney and state office holder. So she had help, that’s great!

I guess she is a natural blonde………

yoga, Doga, Secret Yoga, follow-up, London’s Most Curious Yoga Classes, Completely London Blog: As a follow up to my “naked coed yoga’ article … Doga and Secret Yoga! Those Brits … They have a better idea shen it comes to yoga.

Rather than a weekly drop-in, serious yoga fans might want to treat themselves to this pop-up/fitness hybrid. Held at clandestine venues across London – Secret Yoga Club provides a dynamic hour-long Jivamukti flow class, a Savasana (the relaxation bit at the end) serenaded by a singer and a three-course vegan menu. They say: ‘leave with a soul full of joy and a tummy full of goodness’. We say: ‘Sign us up!’. Find their weekly classes here.

2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, New Olympic Uniforms, Ugly, News from the Field | OutsideOnline.com: Once again … UGLY!

The U.S. Olympic team’s uniforms for the opening ceremonies at Sochi were unveiled Thursday on the Today Show with Matt Lauer and the reactions have been, ah, not so terrific.

The uniforms, designed by Ralph Lauren, were modeled on the show by figure skater Evan Lysacek, hockey player Julie Chu, ice dancers Charlie White and Meryl Davis, and freestyle skiers Hannah Kearney and Alex Schlopy.

Looks like my Grandmother’s sweater…but, at least they were made in America!

decades-long mystery, seemingly random letters: I loved this FB post!

” This is cool not only because it is a prayer (oops, spoiler alert!), but because it demonstrates what can happen when we share, collaborate compassionately, and lend our minds and time to others in need. Surely that must be among the highest callings and most ardent lessons we can know or share? Surely.”

Yesterday afternoon, a woman seeking help with a decades-old family mystery posted a thread on Ask Metafilter titled “Decoding cancer-addled ramblings”:

My grandmother passed away in 1996 of a fast-spreading cancer. She was non-communicative her last two weeks, but in that time, she left at least 20 index cards with scribbled letters on them. My cousins and I were between 8-10 years old at the time, and believed she was leaving us a code. We puzzled over them for a few months trying substitution ciphers, and didn’t get anywhere.

The index cards appear to just be a random series of letters, and had confounded the poster’s family for years. But it only took Metafilter 15 minutes to at least partially decipher them. User harperpitt quickly realized she was using the first letters of words, and that she was, in fact, writing prayers:

After a Princeton University study came out predicting Facebook’s demise, Facebook has responded with its own “research” predicting the downfall of Princeton: http://on.wsj.com/M47gZu

On Thursday, Facebook went a step further with its own mock academic research. “Princeton will have only half its current enrollment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all,” wrote Mike Develin, a data scientist at Facebook.

Develin said he analyzed various data points, including the percentage of queries on Google Scholar matching the query “Princeton.” Develin’s research showed the percentage had dropped dramatically since 2000, an “alarming” number, he wrote.

“In keeping with the scientific principle ‘correlation equals causation,’ our research unequivocally demonstrated that Princeton may be in danger of disappearing entirely,” Develin wrote.

The paper authors could not immediately be reached.

Facebook’s posting Thursday ends on an ominous note. “While we are concerned for Princeton University, we are even more concerned about the fate of the planet–Google Trends for “air” have also been declining steadily, and our projections show that by the year 2060 there will be no air left.”

Maria Tallchief, the first Native American prima ballerina, Mighty Girls: Interesting history from the art world.

Today in Mighty Girl history, Maria Tallchief, the first Native American to become a prima ballerina, was born in 1925. One of the most acclaimed ballerinas of the 20th century, Tallchief grew up on the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma. As noted in a NY Times tribute to her, “Growing up at a time when many American dancers adopted Russian stage names, Ms. Tallchief, proud of her Indian heritage, refused to do so, even though friends told her that it would be easy to transform Tallchief into Tallchieva.”

Tallchief kept her name and made her mark throughout the dance world, dancing with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1942 to 1947 and the New York City Ballet from its founding in 1947 through 1965. She is pictured here in the title role of George Balanchine’s ballet “Firebird.” This dance legend passed away this past April at the age of 88.

Concept trailer for the new production from Oscar-winning studio Breakthru films, a feature-length painted animation. A murder mystery about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh told through revealing interviews with the characters from van Gogh’s own paintings.

My Advent photo-a-day prompt was “PEACE” … so I immediately went to my labyrinth walking and from there went to scripture and liturgy … Where does the word “peace” take you?

Advent Photo #3: PEACE

John 14:27 (NIV)

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

…

The Passing of the Peace

By Rev. Rebecca

St. Paul always greeted and closed with the words, “The peace of God be with you” in his pastoral letters. This is an appropriate way to greet fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and so we say, “The peace of the Lord be with you” and respond, “And also with you.” We then pass this greeting of peace to one another. At the passing of the peace we should earnestly desire God’s peace upon each person we greet. The passing of the peace is also a sign of obedience to Jesus’ words that we make peace with one another before offering our gifts at the altar (Matt. 5:23-24).

The name itself makes them seem old. Ancient, really. Like something pre-Christian, something that might be unearthed among long-lost ruins.

But labyrinths – wandering pathways like the one Greek myths say Daedalus devised to imprison the monstrous Minotaur – are in the midst of a modern renewal.

For the last couple of decades, labyrinths based on a medieval model have cropped up at churches, retreats, private homes, even health-care institutions across the country and across Georgia and north metro Atlanta. They’re catching on with the faithful as a way to momentarily escape the distractions of modern life.

Mary Caroline Cravens of Buckhead, president of St. Monica’s Guild at the Cathedral of St. Philip, said she’s found an “amazing release” walking labyrinths. “You feel refreshed. Rejuvenated. Lighter. Calmer,” she said. “I think it’s because you’re leaving whatever burden it was [you brought in with you] in God’s hands.”

And finally, just a few minutes ago, I saw this. I had a delightful conversation with a kith sister and we talked briefly about the relationships of our children’s generation with religion, noting the spiritual v. religion dichotomy. This Krista Tippett tweet brought peace into a full circle “if you give a moose a muffin” moment.

Krista Tippett ‏@kristatippett 38s

Spiritual life is reality-based. It can have mystical entry points and destinations. But it is at root about making peace with what is.

This first version was… surprisingly not awful. But it also was not anything else. The flavors just canceled each other out, and it was bland. So I started over. The second time, I blended some Greek finishing salt (it’s flaky so it crumbles easily) with the potato chips, and instead of the buttermilk, used half & half and fresh Meyer lemon juice to instantly “sour” it. Finally, I added a dollop of actual applesauce to amp up the apple flavor and provide some texture, without too much syrupy sweetness. The result? Cool, creamy but not cloying, and with a little salty crunch from the rim. Success!

I noticed that the ingredients did start to separate after about ten minutes. But hey, latkes don’t taste good cold, either. –E.C. Gladstone

October 18, 2013 1:27 PM EDT — Studies suggest women in both the minority and majority parties in Congress are more successful legislators than their male counterparts. Georgetown’s Michele Swers sits down with host Emily Heil to analyze why. (The Washington Post)

Pope Francis spoke with Forlani as the dog briefly sniffed the pontiffs robe and shoes.Forlani asked that his wife and daughter be blessed, the report stated, then the pope bent down and pet Asià.”[The pope] said, and a special blessing for [your] dog too. He broke the ceremonial rules as my presence on stage with Asià wasnt previously arranged,” Forlani said.When Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name of St. Francis, it was a first for many reasons. Bergoglio was the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit pope and the first to choose the name Francis.St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals, merchants and ecology. Animal lovers around the world took note when the pope chose the name of Fancis, hoping it would be a boon for animal rights.

this and that, kith/kin, random: So an unnamed member of my kith/kin family “mentioned” that I was posting too much. He/she likes me to string them all together. Well, I will compromise. I will post my favorites daily, but will try to post a features page every few days. This will be the totally random or entertainment “features” post. I hope I get my good karma back from my readers. 🙂

This one is funny … who remembers Tilly? Well, the Tilly voice artist is the Siri voice artist, and she recorded the voice 8 years and did not know who it was for until friends recognized her voice. She now speaks to more than 100 million people through what at the time of the recording was a not-yet-invented phone

From Tilly to Siri. Who else remembers Tilly!?!

For the past two years, she’s been a pocket and purse accessory to millions of Americans. She’s starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. She’s ‘s provided weather forecasts and restaurant tips, been mocked as useless and answered absurd questions about what she’s wearing.

She is Siri, Apple’s voice-activated virtual “assistant” introduced to the masses with the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.

Behind this groundbreaking technology there is a real woman. While the ever-secretive Apple has never identified her, all signs indicate that the original voice of Siri in the United States is a voiceover actor who laid down recordings for a client eight years ago. She had no idea she’d someday be speaking to more than 100 million people through a not-yet-invented phone.

I’ve posted several times on 3 D printers. Now technology duplicates art … in 3d. Look at the strokes!

The London based married couple and artist team, with no relation to this Nick Carter, tapped into the burgeoning 3D printing trend to bring Van Goghs beloved bouquet out of the frame and into the real world.The team began by turning the paintings into completely three-dimensional files, then printing them in wax bronze. The process allowed for shocking levels of precision in the translation between brush stroke and sculptural shape.

Is having open-plan bathrooms just the natural extension of our open kitchens and a general global modern-day tendency to open up our living spaces and live in lofts or loftlike spaces? Is it an extension of the idea that bathrooms aren’t just functional necessities but spa-like focal points of our sanctuary-like homes? Or has the erosion of privacy in our public lives just made us all more comfortable being overexposed, even at home?

Rousseau thinks it’s a generational question. “I think with age we look for ways to seduce by modest gestures and by covering ourselves up,” she says. “I don’t see myself proposing an open bathroom to older people; they need much more privacy.”

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Pakistan\’s Baluchistan province created a small island visible off the southern coast. The Pakistani Navy visited the island and captured video of the newly formed landmass. Photo: Getty Images

This is along the same lines as the tiny libraries or random act of kindness? Would you take a book? Would you leave a book?

You happen to be visiting London this summer (or heck maybe you live there), there’s a chance you’ll find books left on the seat of some bus or subway for you. Books on the Underground is a really simple idea: leave a book you love for a stranger to find and ask them to release it back into the world when they are done with it.

A simple sticker on the cover explains the idea to the book’s finder–and karma does the rest.

The College of Rock and Roll Knowledge, Abbey Road, the man in the suit, the “Beatle Beetle”, random:

The College of Rock and Roll Knowledge

Paul Cole was in one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century, and yet he wasn’t famous.

He is clearly seen in the famous shot of the Beatles walking across London’s Abbey Road, used as the front cover of the group’s classic 1969 album, “Abbey Road.” Over the years, the picture has been reproduced in books, on posters, coffee mugs, T-shirts and hundreds of other places.

The retired salesman is standing on the sidewalk, just behind the Beatles. Gawking at them.

On a London vacation with his wife, Cole declined to enter a museum on the north London thoroughfare.

“I told her, ‘I’ve seen enough museums. You go on in, take your time and look around and so on, and I’ll just stay out here and see what’s going on outside,'” he recalled.

Parked just outside was a black police van. “I like to just start talking with people,” Cole said. “I walked out, and that cop was sitting there in that police car. I just started carrying on a conversation with him. I was asking him about all kinds of things, about the city of London and the traffic control, things like that. Passing the time of day.”

In the picture, Cole is standing next to the police van.

It was 10 a.m., Aug. 8, 1969. Photographer Iain McMillan was on a stepladder in the middle of the street, photographing the four Beatles as they walked, single-file, across Abbey Road, John Lennon in his famous white suit, Paul McCartney without shoes. The entire shoot lasted 10 minutes.

“I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks,” Cole remembered. “A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn’t walk around in London barefoot.”

About a year later, Cole first noticed the “Abbey Road” album on top of the family record player (his wife was learning to play George Harrison’s love song “Something” on the organ). He did a double-take when he eyeballed McMillan’s photo.

“I had a new sportcoat on, and I had just gotten new shell-rimmed glasses before I left,” he says. “I had to convince the kids that that was me for a while. I told them, ‘Get the magnifying glass out, kids, and you’ll see it’s me.'”

It’s appearance in the picture was a total accident, as it belonged to one of the people living in the apartment across from the recording studio, and and couldn’t be moved out of the picture because the owner was away on holiday. . Rumor has it that after the album came out the license plate (LMF 28IF) was repeatedly stolen from the car.

In 1986, Pete Gent, who owned ‘The Music Department’ musical instrument shop in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, came across the very famous car standing in a car showroom forecourt. Pete promply bought it – realising that the car salesman had no idea of the history of the car or the license plate.

The car was sold at an auction for $23,000 and is currently on display at the Volkswagen museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.

The Museum plaque states ‘Starting in 1962 John Lennon and Paul McCartney conquered the world with the music of the Beatles. They unleashed enthusiasm that continues unabated to this day. In 1967, John Lennon ordered this 1300 Beetle, license number LMW 281F and used it for daily transportation. In 1969 this particular Beetle became world famous when it appeared on the cover of the Abbey Road album and gave rise to months of rumours of Paul McCartney’s death because of the license number 281F. It was acquired by VW at an auction in the summer of 1999’.

The plaque is incorrect in saying that John Lennon ordered the car and used it for daily transportation. Lennon never owned it.

Today marks what would be the 111th birthday of Ansel Adams, the American photographer who captured the sublime power of the wilderness, taking iconic images of the American West, most notably in Yosemite Valley. (See photo gallery here.) Original footage documenting the creative life of Ansel Adams is surprisingly hard to come by online. So A/V Geeks and Develop Tube did us all a favor when they revived this 1958 documentary revealing Adams’ technical approach to photography, the cameras and related gear he carried to the field, and his thoughts on the artistic horizons of photography.

Ansel Adams, Photographer (1958) is available at YouTube and Archive.org. It will now appear in the Documentary section of our collection of 500 Free Movies Online.

The Fox Theatre Atlanta, Edison Mazda Lamp: Why “Mazda” lamp? “The name Mazda has nothing to do with today’s popular car maker. Instead, it refers to Ahura Mazda. Mazda is an ancient God of an Iranian religion known as Zoroastrianism. His name means “Lord of Light and Wisdom.”

The Fox Theatre Atlanta

June 26

An amazing piece of Thomas Edison history was recently discovered within the walls of the Fox Theatre. This light bulb, or electric lamp as they were once called, is an “Edison Mazda” lamp.

Even though decades have passed since these kinds of bulbs could be purchased, it still looks much like the light bulbs we use today.

In 1909, General Electric began using the trademarked and registered name, Mazda, for its incandescent light bulbs. The name Mazda has nothing to do with today’s popular car maker. Instead, it refers to Ahura Mazda. Mazda is an ancient God of an Iranian religion known as Zoroastrianism. His name means “Lord of Light and Wisdom.”

President Barack Obama lives in a 16-bedroom, 35-bathroom single-family home that would cost nearly $320 million if it were for sale, according to online home-buying site Zillow.com. (Spoiler: It’s not.)

Still, Zillow’s tens of millions of monthly users will be able to settle in Wednesday for an interview with the president — a virtual roundtable focused on housing policy, part of his drive to retake the initiative on economic issues.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff will moderate the event, using questions submitted through a range of social media with the hashtag #AskObamaHousing. Zillow will be looking for especially frequent questions, as well as queries that housing experts think are timely. The White House will not get the questions in advance.

I doubt that anyone in 1968 predicted Detroit would lose most of its industrial base and half its population over the next 40 years (1970 – 2010). Such a forecast was beyond even the most prescient futurist.

Four decades is not that long a time period, and our inability to predict large-scale trends over that time frame reveals intrinsic limitations in forecasting.

Nonetheless, the dramatic decline of Detroit and other industrial cities makes me wonder if there are dynamics that we can identify that could enable us to predict which cities will thrive and which will decay.

Here is my semi-random list of potentially decisive urban dynamics:

1. Since most people live in cities, global trends that appear abstract from 40,000 feet manifest in cities.

2. Single-industry cities are highly vulnerable to disruption if that one industry declines.

3. Cities that are dependent on highly centralized institutions and industries are more vulnerable to disruption that cities with a broad base of smaller, decentralized employers and sectors.

4. Cities that depend on highly centralized employers attract people seeking to become employees; cities that are not dominated by centralized organizations but foster rapidly growing decentralized sectors are more likely to attract entrepreneurial talent and capital.

5. The cities’ primary industries must pull in profits and capital from the nation and world.

6. Highly centralized industries with rigid hierarchies, local political control and vertical supply chains do not foster the same entrepreneurial spirit and ecosystem as decentralized, fragmented industries that are still open financially and politically to competition and cooperation.

7. Rigidly controlled, centralized dominant political and financial organizations cannot foster the complex ecosystem of innovators and risk-takers that generate new wealth.

8. The Ratchet Effect is key: it is easy to expand payrolls, land area, benefits and pensions as the tax base and tax revenues expand; it is essentially politically impossible to shrink payrolls, benefits and pensions as the tax base shrinks and tax revenues decline.

9. Cities with dynamic ecosystems of mobile knowledge workers, innovators, risk-takers and mobile capital will tend to attract these same wealth creators from less dynamic and opportunistic cities and towns, in effect poaching the most potentially productive people and capital from 2nd tier and 3rd tier cities.

Here is a relevant quote from the above article on the poaching of capital and human capital by major cities:

As metropolises such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou become black holes for resources, medium and small-sized cites have encountered difficulties in their development. “The most frustrating part about Tianjin [an industrial city an hour southeast of Beijing] is that we don’t own the resources that commonly exist in first-tier cities – good resources are all taken by Beijing.”

10. Cities that offer cost-effective good governance are attractive to non-elite productive people; cities that skim wealth via corruption and do not provide efficient services offer disincentives to productive people who have a choice of where they live.

11. Wealth is not just the financial wealth of the residents or the tax revenues generated by the tax base. Social and human capital, and the networks that enable flows of information, talent and capital are critical types of capital. We can adapt Bob Dylan’s line here: “Those cities not busy being born are busy dying.”

12. Cities are ultimately constructed not just of infrastructure and political policy but of incentives and disincentives and individuals who respond to those inputs. In this view, the infrastructure of transit, parks, libraries, etc. and non-material policies and cultural-economic zeitgeist create the incentives and disincentives that people respond to.

Cities that offer incentives–most importantly, a healthy ecosystem of like-minded people–to innovators, risk-takers and mobile capital to fund new enterprises will generate a self-reinforcing feedback loop that attracts more productive people and wealth. Those cities that centralize cartels and political elites who naturally suppress competition as a threat to their control are vulnerable to systemic decay as the disincentives to the most productive overwhelm the self-liquidating incentives of rigid, sclerotic, centralized hierarchies.

The one thing we can safely predict is that technological and social innovations will continue to arise and disrupt the Status Quo. If cities are like ecosystems, then we can see that cities that are static monocultures are much more prone to decay and collapse than cities that encourage a complex wealth of competing and cooperating enterprises and networks.

Perhaps these dynamics apply not just to cities but to entire nations.

There are 55 fewer trash cans at one national park in D.C. as park rangers ask visitors to carry out their own garbage. http://on.wsj.com/13Aonau

The idea behind project ‘Carry In-Carry Out’ is to free up the park service’s trash haulers to pursue beautification projects, such as flower planting.

Do you think the park’s priority should be beautification or maintenance? Are you willing to carry out your trash?

…

National Park Service chief groundskeeper Anthony Migliaccio piloted his utility vehicle down the George Washington Memorial Parkway, surveying the good, the bad and the ugly in the government’s new effort to get visitors to do something that doesn’t come naturally: haul away their own garbage.

Along the parkway’s main stem—a lush, tree-lined Virginia roadway that runs from George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to the forests of Turkey Run Park—there are now 55 fewer garbage cans. In their place are signs informing people that they are now expected to tote away their half-eaten hot dogs, soiled paper plates, crushed soda cans and the like.

With the Iwo Jima statue in the background, a sign at the Marine Corps Memorial explains Trash Free Parks, with complimentary bags.

The idea behind project Carry In-Carry Out, explained Mr. Migliaccio, is to free up the park service’s trash haulers to pursue more noble beautification projects, such as flower planting.

But training the masses to stuff their own refuse back into their cars, purses and strollers is causing something of a stink.

On a recent day, one lonely can in a busy park overflowed with visitors’ refuse. Meanwhile, a nearby dispenser of free plastic trash bags—each printed with a plea for folks to retain their own waste—remained full.

3-D Printed Version of Yourself, mini me, Wired Design | Wired.com: I’m with you, FB friend … one of me is probably quite sufficient … But still wondering what I would do with a 6″ mini me …

Using the latest in 360-degree scanning and 3-D printing technologies, Twinkind, a new company based in Hamburg, Germany, will turn you, your loved ones, or your pets into a marvelously detailed little statues. It might seem a bit gimmicky if the results weren’t so stunning. The final figurines, which can range in size from roughly 6″ (around $300) to 13″ (around $1,700), are strikingly, maybe even a little unsettlingly realistic, capturing everything from poses and facial expressions down to hair styles and the folds in clothes, all in full, faithful color.

In what you’d have to call a journalistic coup for any news service, The Wall Street Journal has, at long last, gotten Twitter Inc. to comment on the heady subculture known as Weird Twitter.

Weird Twitter, for the uninitiated, refers to a loose confederation of Twitter users who use the social network as a platform for experimental verbiage: satire, poetry, collage, the absurd—all are included. In its push for an eclectic and overdeveloped aestheticism, it resembles a 21st-century branch of Dada.

Simply put, Weird Twitter is pushing the envelope in ways that do not necessarily align with Twitter’s best financial interests. Take the whole sponsored posts angle, for instance: that’s the type of corporate leaching that brings out the quiet anarchist in some people. As the WSJ explains:

Ryan Woodsmall, a 34-year-old information-technology worker in St. Louis., hates promoted tweets. When he notices one from, say, Wal-Mart or Bank of America, in his feed, he will reply to the tweet or retweet it after editing the tweet to insert misspelled words or other flourishes that he hopes will reflect poorly on the brand. He also does this because he hopes it will drive up the cost of advertising for the brand.

“It’s just fractions of pennies and it’s juvenile, but it’s still satisfying,” says Mr. Woodsmall.

That satisfaction may not have much basis in reality, however. According to Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser, the company has an algorithm in place to ensure advertisers never pay for “insincere” engagement—meaning cubicle warriors like Woodsmall would have to get more creative in their disruptions.

That’s not the part that hurts most about Prosser’s comments, however. In the article, he also framed Weird Twitter’s protests, attitude, and policy of self-selection as “the eternal battle people have over hipsterdom.” Ouch. Meanwhile, another employee, John Manoogian III, defended Weird Twitter as “just regular people trying to reclaim the platform with ironic, meta-humor.”